Democracy Now! has regularly covered the Afghanistan War since it was launched Oct. 7, 2001. Over the years, we have interviewed dozens of independent journalists, civilians living in the conflict zones, scholars, veterans, and antiwar activists.

The investigative journalist Michael Hastings has died at the age of 33 in a Los Angeles car crash. Reporting extensively from Iraq and Afghanistan, Hastings’ widely read stories showed the grim realities of war. His 2010 Rolling Stone article on General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, sparked a political controversy after McChrystal and his aides were quoted making disparaging remarks about top administration...

Democracy Now! returns to Chicago, site of the largest NATO summit in the organization’s six-decade history, where nearly 50 veterans discarded their war medals by hurling them down the street in the direction of the NATO summit. We hear the soldiers’ voices as they return their medals one by one from the stage. "I’m here to return my Global War on Terror Service Medal in solidarity with the people of Iraq and the people of...

On a makeshift stage outside the NATO summit in Chicago, antiwar veterans fold an American flag that flew over NATO operations from Bosnia to Libya and which represents the flag that is “draped over the coffins of thousands of Americans killed in combat and thousands more who have committed suicide after they returned from service." They present the flag to Mary Kirkland, mother of Derrick Kirkland, who joined the military in 2007 and...

We’re joined at the NATO summit in Chicago by Scott Olsen, who survived two tours in Iraq but almost died when he was hit with a police projectile at an Occupy Oakland protest last year. Olsen returned four of his medals at Sunday’s antiwar march. When asked why he’s joined the Occupy movement and is protesting against the heavily policed NATO summit, Olsen says, "I’m going to make every effort I can to show them that...

The antiwar march at the NATO summit on May 20, 2012, in Chicago was jointly led by members of Afghans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). "We’re here to protest NATO and call on all NATO representatives to end this inhumane, illegal, barbaric war against our home country and our people," says Suraia Sahar, a member of Afghans for Peace, who marched alongside Afghan war veteran Graham Clumpner during the anti-NATO...

Monday marked the deadliest day for U.S. troops this year in Afghanistan after seven soldiers perished in two separate incidents. Five U.S. servicemembers were killed in a helicopter crash outside Kandahar city. Hours earlier, two U.S. soldiers were shot dead in a so-called insider attack at a special operations site in Wardak province when a person in an Afghan military uniform turned his gun on U.S. and Afghan forces. Three Afghan police...

As President Obama announced plans to withdraw another 34,000 troops from Afghanistan, longtime peace activist Kathy Kelly warns the war shows no end. Kelly, who just returned from Afghanistan, says the company formally known as Blackwater is now running a base just outside of Kabul used by the Special Operations Joint Task Force. On Monday, a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan killed 10 civilians. The strike hit what the NATO occupation force...

The documentary "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield" follows investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill to Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen as he chases down the hidden truth behind America’s expanding covert wars, focusing on the Obama administration’s increasing use of armed drones and secretive units including the Joint Special Operations Command. On Saturday, the film’s director, Richard Rowley, was awarded the...

The increasing pace of U.S. drone strikes, and the Obama administration’s reliance on shadowy special forces to conduct military raids beyond the reach of oversight and accountability, were summarily missed over the inaugural weekend by a U.S. press corps obsessed with first lady Michelle Obama’s new bangs. At the annual Sundance Film Festival the world premiere of “Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield”...